But Underneath We Are Golden
by lullabystander
Summary: Quinn is a poster child for teenage rebellion, and to Rachel's surprise, after the initial shock of it wears off, she finds she is even more drawn to her. 50 sentences about Punk!Quinn Faberry.


**Title:** But Underneath We Are Golden  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> Glee  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Faberry  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Quinn is a poster child for teenage rebellion, a Pink Lady and T-Bird hybrid with a middle finger poised over the self-destruct button, and to Rachel's surprise, after the initial shock of it wears off, she finds she is (even more) drawn to her. 50 sentences about Punk!Quinn Faberry.  
><strong>Rating<strong>: Light R  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own Glee. Glee is not mine.  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 3,143

**A/N:** Written using a prompt set from doitin1, where the idea is to write fifty sentences about a chosen fandom character (though as I am 'borrowing' the prompt set, it's a fandom pairing). Run on sentences and general abuse of punctuation, ahead.  
><strong>AN 2:** This is basically AU from _The Purple Piano Project _onwards. So, no Shelby and no crazy baby stealing plot. I just wanted to write some Punk!Quinn Faberry.  
><strong>AN 3:** The sentences are posted in chronological order and should hopefully follow a loose storyline of sorts. The title is taken from _In Spirit Golden_ by I Blame Coco.

* * *

><p><em>042. snack<em>

Quinn yanks something at the back of the vending machine and, after a nonchalant kick with a bulky steel-toed boot, a flood of confectionary rushes out to meet the feet of a stunned Rachel Berry, who gapes wordlessly (dollar in hand) as Quinn casually picks up, opens and bites into a candy bar – utterly unapologetic for the mess made of the corridor – and coolly and carelessly swaggers away.

_023. wisdom_

Quinn doesn't have the patience for bullshit anymore – that's what months and months of trying to cling onto Finn Hudson will do to a girl – but whenever Rachel approaches her with one of her many, tentative pearls of teenage wisdom, rather than lash out and tell her where to go, Quinn takes a breath, counts to five, and smiles impassively, because it makes Rachel lose her words, and that's when Quinn likes Rachel best.

_002. combat_

The old Quinn was regal and demanding and indecipherable, but this new Quinn - the Quinn who plays hookey and courts detention, who smacks gum in class and flips off teachers, who smokes in the bathroom and strikes matches on the soles of her boots – is a poster child for teenage rebellion, a Pink Lady and T-Bird hybrid with a middle finger poised over the self-destruct button, and to Rachel's surprise, after the initial shock of it wears off, she finds she is (even more) drawn to her.

_020. drums_

Contrary to popular belief, smoking and body art aren't the _only_ past times Quinn took up over the summer; thanks to a few months' employment at the grungiest record store in Lima, she can now also wreak skilled havoc on the drums – a fact she demonstrates in McKinley's empty music room one afternoon, after school, oblivious to the forgotten star-emblazoned notebook on top of the piano (and the impressed gaze of its owner looking on from behind the half-open door).

_009. masking_

Throughout history, ships have been launched for beautiful women like Quinn – duels have been fought, crimes committed, songs sung – and Rachel thinks her friend is still deserving of all of those things, here and now; piercings and cigarettes won't change that.

_025. song_

After Rachel's fourth unsuccessful (but solid) attempt to coax Quinn away from The Skanks and back into glee club, Ronnie steps out of the shadows with two smouldering cigarettes and, handing one to Quinn, she quips, "Wow, eye-sex _and_ a song; if that's what you kids get up to in glee club, I might have to sign up."

_022. found_

It doesn't matter if Quinn is under the bleachers, in the girls' bathroom, or (when her fellow Skanks aren't around to hate on her eagerness – and ability – to read) in the library; Rachel always seems to track her down with ease, like an unstoppable singing bloodhound.

_028. haircut_

There are two standout opinions when it comes to Quinn – bring back the old Quinn, and politely ignore the new Quinn – but both of these are unacceptable to Rachel, who really would just like to _be there_ for Quinn, regardless of her clothes and her hair colour and the cliques she's a member of, because, in spite of everything that has passed between them, she _cares_ about her, and she wants to help her get it right.

_045. musical_

The music on Quinn's iPod is a lot moodier these days, ranging from The Smiths and Joy Division to Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins, but, tucked away amongst the playlists (with song titles erased and replaced with words only _she_ knows the private meaning of) is a list of tracks from popular musicals that Rachel Berry's voice was so lovingly spun for, labelled very simply as _"it's not all bad_".

_019. world_

It is killing Rachel to see Quinn's untold potential go to waste; she is a beautiful, challenging and indescribably intelligent girl with the whole world at her feet, despite her sacrifices, but she just refuses to see it.

_044. glasses_

Quinn pushes her sunglasses up onto her head and licks her lips thoughtfully, eyeing the CD in Rachel's hand with reluctant interest as she says, "I'm really not the one you should be asking to listen to the songs you write, Rachel."

_004. motor_

Quinn rolls her eyes and turns the key in the ignition, but doesn't immediately drive off; instead she sits there for a moment, engine ticking, hands tight on the steering wheel, and Rachel's earnest ever-pleading gaze threatening to dismantle her determination, until she finally huffs, "If you were so bothered about getting in trouble, Rachel, you wouldn't have followed me – " an exasperated breath, a lofted eyebrow, " – so get in here or get lost; I don't give a damn, either way."

_041. test_

Rachel missed two tests this afternoon – _two_ tests, _important_ tests – and she knows she should hate herself for it, hell she should be lying almost foetal with remorse for it, but whenever even a hint of guilt bubbles up inside her, needling her, she looks to her right at Quinn – Quinn with her wild pink hair and new devil-may-care charisma, swaying with closed eyes to the gritty bluesy grooves of The Black Keys (lost in her own world, despite the Pittsburgh crowd of thousands) and it dies away, forgotten and insignificant in the face of her troubled friend's temporary peace.

_039. negative_

Finn takes Rachel aside one day and, in an all-knowing, warning tone that infuriates her almost as much as his actual words, he says, "You need to leave Quinn alone, Rachel, she's a mess and she's – she's _dangerous_; she doesn't care about anything anymore – there's nothing left to save."

_033. dancing_

When Rachel dares to ask her if she misses glee at all, even a little bit, her puppy dog eyes are alive with such nervous, innocent hope that Quinn finds herself unwilling to disappoint her, and lowers her defences just enough to quietly admit, "I miss the dancing."

_047. speeding_

Sometimes, when Rachel is with her in her car, Quinn likes to crank up the volume of whatever is already blaring through the speakers and slam her foot down hard on the gas, not only because it shuts Rachel up, but because there is something incredibly intoxicating about the desperate way the other girl grabs onto her thigh and begs her '_stop_ _Quinn, please, please, slow down, stop!'_

_037. animal_

There is a window sticker of Animal from The Muppets on the rear screen of Quinn's car;"Sheila put it there," Quinn sighs when she spots Rachel eyeing it curiously (for the fiftieth time), "because of this – " she flicks a hand at her tousled pink hair " – and, like, the drums and whatever; but that's _classified_ information, okay, so keep _this_," (a firm finger on Rachel's smirking lips) "shut."

_036. sword_

Quinn used to consider her mouth as a weapon against Rachel – just as mighty as the pen and the sword, yielding barbed comments and bitter criticisms as attack and defence combined – but now silence is her weapon, saying nothing and giving nothing away, because Rachel somehow knows her too well now (_how? How?_), and that's a vulnerability Quinn can't (won't) give her, not tomorrow and not today.

_008. headphones_

"Quinn, I understand we have an unspoken agreement that I won't lecture you or – or give you speeches, in exchange for your letting me, um... be where you are, and I intend to continue honouring that but I just want to say – no wait, Quinn, oh please don't put your headphones on, please, I'm just trying to – "

_015. vacation_

School breaks for Christmas, and Rachel calls and she texts, but Quinn responds to neither, relieved for the opportunity to put some space between them, just for a while.

_031. criminal_

It's a pure and simple case of wrong place wrong time when Quinn and Mack get arrested for trespassing at some recreational center in Findlay, but Puck calling the Berries when Quinn pointedly contacted _him_ as her one phone call is cruel and calculated, and Quinn doesn't forgive him for it for weeks.

_032. bars_

For the briefest of minutes, Quinn thinks being released from custody to a bemusingly accepting Hiram Berry ("Oh honey, it happens to the best of us," he tells her ambiguously) is the most humiliating moment of her life; ten minutes later, when she is stuck in the backseat with Rachel and her doe-eyed, inevitably pitying concern, that moment is toppled by the very quiet and torturously long drive home.

_021. island_

Quinn is an island, wild with darkness in an ocean of hurt, and Rachel is the one person, that one _tireless_ (see: stubborn, mulish, unyielding) person with a toolbox of words and looks and the patience of a saint, determined to make the place habitable again.

_043. sunshine_

Quinn throws an arm across her alcohol-bleary eyes, shutting out the sun and sky and irrepressible superstar shine of one Rachel Berry, who, even after being told to "go and good-Samaritan the will to live out of some other high school screw up", is standing over her with a sympathetic smile that (Quinn knows) she really, _really_ doesn't deserve.

_038. black and white_

It has only taken Quinn three years to accept it, but things between her and Rachel have never been – and never will be – simply black and white, and there is _so_ much more to them than shades of grey.

_018. writing_

A message lands on her open text book in the middle of Spanish, small and crumpled, and when Rachel opens it – carefully and quietly, under the edge of the desk – Quinn's handwriting (in a scrawled, saddening mess that shows no part of the once pristine cheerleader has escaped the hard edge of her newfound rebellion) proposes: '_Band of Skulls spare ticket, Columbus, Thursday – keep me out of jail?_ _Q_'

_013. strange bedfellows_

Three years ago, Quinn would have avoided The Skanks like the plague, and she would have made life Hell with a capital H for Rachel Berry (for reasons she is still learning to trust herself with), but times change and people change, Quinn understands that more than anyone, and, like Shakespeare said, 'misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows'.

_050. officer_

The Skanks scatter like rats when a cop catches them improving the decor of an abandoned furniture store – with spray paint, obviously – and it's not until Quinn is doubled over with a bitch of a stitch on the Berries' front lawn that she realises where she has scattered _to_ (and that her leg is bleeding, but Rachel soon fixes that right up for her, without questions, and Quinn knows it was the right place to go).

_027. disaster_

Quinn smoothes her thumb over the picture of Beth – _her_ Beth – as she has a thousand times before, with reverence and regret, and she sniffles into the phone, drunkenly slurring a truth that's been clawing at her heart for nearly two years now: "I should have kept her, Rachel."

_006. crystal_

A crystal ball, that's what she needs; a crystal ball, a tarot deck and faith in Rachel's infinitely foolish faith in her – maybe then things will finally start making sense.

_035. temple_

Rachel slips tentative fingers into choppy pink tresses, twining through silk-warm layers with the intention to pacify, to soothe, and it should feel like the safest sweetest touch in the world, but it doesn't; it feels dangerous, like a loaded gun, and when brave fingertips graze Quinn's temple, it takes the pained combination of a deep breath, two tightly clenched fists and a mouthful of gritted teeth for Quinn to not flinch away.

_001. little black dress_

Hidden in the shadows of the auditorium, Quinn watches the glee club's final costume rehearsal for Regionals, grudgingly mesmerised by the petite brunette in the little black dress, and her beautiful powerhouse solo that will effortlessly win them a spot at Nationals.

_011. diet soda_

It isn't entirely clear to everyone at McKinley what it was, exactly, that Finn Hudson said to piss off Rachel Berry so badly, but the following things are fact: it was about Quinn Fabray, it was stupid, and it landed him with a slap and a face full of Diet Pepsi in the middle of Breadstix.

_040. sleep_

Her cell rings at some ungodly hour Quinn would rather not know about, and she answers with the intent to verbally destroy whoever is responsible for it, but then Rachel says, in a quiet thread of a voice, "I broke up with Finn," and all of the ire rushes out of her in the space of a soft, surprised "Oh".

_034. heels_

The first time Quinn allows Rachel into her apartment, the entranceway is a disaster area of empty gin bottles, unpacked grocery bags and Mrs Fabray's haphazardly abandoned coat and Jimmy Choos – a mess that Quinn isn't proud of, but her parents' divorce was uglier than hell and things have been kind of rough since (but it _is_ getting better, kind of, slowly); thankfully, typically, Rachel understands.

_026. licorice_

Quinn's mouth, when Rachel at long last kisses her (softly and carefully, so not to scare her away) tastes like cigarettes and warm licorice, smoky and alcohol-sweet, with a bitter edge of fear that fades with each searching brush of tongue and increasingly tremulous sigh.

_029. cup_

Armed with a breezy smile, hot coffee and absolutely no questions as to why, exactly, Quinn is parked and sleeping outside her house at six in the morning, Rachel taps gently on the passenger side door and lets herself in, offering the uncharacteristically sheepish girl the benefit of caffeine and companionable silence.

_003. fringe_

There are days when Quinn just wants the hurt to stop, she wants to _stop_ the hurt (which are the days Mack slaps a bottle of liquor into her hand) but then there are days where it feels like she is on the fringe of something amazing, something that feels like a second chance or a burgeoning epiphany or – or something,just_ something_ (and those are the days Rachel smiles sweetly and promises: _you __**will**__ get through this_).

_010. grass_

Dew-damp grass and the Lima night-sky, breathy whimpers and slick searching fingers, clothes twisted and tugged aside; it happens in a fumbling frantic blur at the heart of an intense confession – _I've never hated you, Rachel; never, never, never, never_ – and Rachel learns, finally and breathlessly, the true meaning of _passion_.

_016. sand dollar_

The woman inking Quinn has a starfish and sand dollar tattoo on one shoulder and Jack Black on the other, and keeps casting amused looks at Rachel (or, more specifically, at her argyle sweater, which perhaps wasn't the most appropriate attire to wear to a grimy tattoo parlour on the bad side of town, but what's done is done) and, while Rachel isn't entirely comfortable, she did _insist_ on accompanying Quinn – who is gripping her fingers quite tightly, despite the mostly neutral expression on her face – and she isn't leaving until her kind-of-more-than friend is content with the small yellow 'B' being marked onto the inside of her wrist.

_046. kitten_

Quinn might have the snarl of a lion, but she purrs like a kitten – at least she does if you know how to handle her, and Rachel is learning, slowly but surely, though not without an occasional run-in with those claws.

_017. mail_

The letter is just a letter, just a slip of paper with words on it, but it is heavy with the future, too heavy for Rachel's trembling fingers to manage the task of opening it – so Quinn wordlessly does it for her, swiftly but sensitively; the incredible, heart-stopping smile that follows a moment later tells Rachel that everything she has always wanted is on its way to coming true.

_024. throat_

"You know, your _entire_ future is in the palm of my hand right now," murmurs Quinn huskily, dangerously, walking nicotine-stained fingertips up the delicate column of Rachel's throat; "No," Rachel whispers with a shake of head, and she clasps Quinn's hand, holding her warm palm flush over her voice box, "_now_ it is."

_005. post-it note_

Rachel knows it's a long shot, but with Noah's encouragement (and not quite above-board assistance) she sneaks a generous stack of college brochures into Quinn's locker, topped with a star-shaped post-it that reads: '_Just take a look x_'.

_030. scene_

Rachel can plea herself hoarse and she bat those long eyelashes until she takes flight, but Quinn is never going back to glee; it's just not her scene anymore, and knowing the touch and taste of their (admittedly delicious) prima donna superstar doesn't and won't change that anytime soon, or ever.

_049. rhinestone_

They are lying together, entwined and tangled, with the sheets low at their waists and sweat cooling on their skin when Rachel runs a fingertip down the perfect bridge of Quinn's perfect nose, to the tiny pink rhinestone stud in her left nostril, and confesses, "I didn't like this at first, but now I – I think it's kind of... sexy," – at which point Quinn smirks and lights a cigarette, stating very simply: "Good, 'cause it's staying."

_007. raven_

Months of patience (and the right amount of Dutch courage) finally culminate in Quinn revealing hidden desires and curiosities; Moscow in December and Paris in the summer, ravens in the Tower of London and black sand in Greece, skiing in The Alps and gondola rides in Venice – Rachel hears about all of it, a life far away from life in Lima, slurred but longed for _so_, so much, and she knows exactly what she is going to help Quinn plan for next.

_014. showers_

New Directions take Nationals by storm and win for their efforts, a spectacular feat that even Sue Sylvester showers with praise, but it's a bittersweet victory for Rachel, because one of the ND originals isn't on stage to share in it (though she _is_ in the audience, beaming and teary-eyed, and that is better than nowhere at all).

_048. horse_

There's not a lot of her one-horse-town life that's salvageable, but Quinn knows what the good parts are and she takes them with her across the Atlantic – undying love for Beth, memories from glee, thoughts of Rachel – all things she never planned for when she was a high school freshman hungry for status and social standing, but things she would now feel incomplete (and probably die) without.

_012. operator_

The first moment she can, she calls collect from a payphone (_because_ she can) and when a New York-embraced Rachel accepts the charge, she can't help it – she bursts into tears; "I'm in London," she says, laughing at herself, at how silly she is being, "I'm in London," and she knows, she can feel it: this is her second chance, and she's going to get it right.


End file.
